


Testing the water

by CommanderInChief



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5954530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderInChief/pseuds/CommanderInChief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart was not not gay. Fact. </p><p>She’d never owned a cat, really didn’t understand her son’s obsession with Beanie’s and couldn’t score a rugby try if her life depended on it. Gordy’s dad had been a man, her husband had been a man, as had every other person she’d ever dated. </p><p>Well... almost. </p><p>And now, when old faces come calling, she's left to rediscover a truth buried under thirty years of regret with the help of the person who'd been by her right-hand-side all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sipping coffee hot enough to leave her tastebuds bitter, Kate allowed herself to lean back into the padding her chair. Her eyes rested under heavy lids and a sigh fell from slightly parted lips. Then, heels having already been kicked off at the door, she rested her throbbing feet on the desk. 

 

Of course, that was the moment that Osgood, red faced and wheezing, decided to burst through the door. 

 

“Inhaler. 

 

If it’s aliens - tell them they can bugger off back to Mars until I’ve finished my coffee,” said Kate, unmoving from her previous position.

 

The brunette laughed, knowing full well that she could get her boss out of the door in five seconds flat if she so much as hinted at an extra-terrestrial. 

 

“No, ma’am, it’s not aliens this time. You’ve ummm…. You’ve got a visitor: a biologist, Doctor Freya A-”

 

“Allen?” finished Kate, darting upright in her seat. 

 

“Yes, were we expecting her?”

 

The blonde, suddenly finding her paperwork a great deal more interesting than it’d been a minute ago, kept her focus firmly on the forms she was now attempting to organise. “No, it’s a long story. We were friends a while back but I haven’t heard from her in decades. Did she say why she’s here? If she’s anything like she used to be, I very much doubt this is going to be a social call,” 

 

“No, but she stressed that she wanted to see you in particular,” 

 

After taking a gulp from the papercup, she cherished a moment's’ peace before giving the inevitable order “Very well, send her through,” 

 

\---

 

When she first bounded into her office, all bright scarves and high heels, Kate was almost certain that the woman had spent the previous three decades in a time-lock. Yes, when she looked properly she noticed the lines diffusing from her eyes and strands of silver weaved into the tight black curls. Yet, they did nothing to take away the warmth of her caramel eyes or the impression that her lips were always holding back a smile. 

 

“So I see you’ve decided to pay us a visit - to what do I owe the honour?” asked the scientist, in a manner that reminded her of an old head-mistress.  _ Amazing what thirty years and a desk can do _ . 

 

Her visitor rolled her eyes in response before sitting herself on the edge of the desk, paying absolutely no attention to the top-layer government files that she’d decided to use as seat-padding. “Come off it, babe, I was just in the area when I heard your name floating around. What was a girl to do?”

 

“Firstly, you don’t have the right to call me that anymore and secondly, I don’t believe for a second that you could just drop in  _ anywhere  _ without wanting something,” 

 

Fraya laughed but nothing was funny. Yet another reminder that some things were better left in the past. “You’re still holding me up for that? Look, I always knew you could hold a grudge like the best of them but this is simply off the scale. How long’s it been now?”

 

“Not long enough. What do you want?”

 

“I want to look out for you, I mean it.”

 

“Bullshit,” 

 

The visitor sighed, drawing her lips into something resembling a smile. “Okay, so maybe I’m lonely,  _ sue me _ \- but not before you let me take you out to lunch,” 

 

“And what makes you think I can just abandon my work here?”

 

“ _ Oh, please _ , I think my  _ suitcase  _ is smaller than the bags under your eyes. Even if something does show up - what’re you gonna do? Take a nap at them? Tell your lady-friend to take over for a  few hours,”

 

“Osgood is my assistant,”

 

“Whatever you say Stewart, whatever you say,” 

 

\---

 

“So, how’s things between you and bowtie?” Asked Freya, waving a piece of dry cucumber around on the end of her fork “She was telling me about you on the way in. You know, if I didn’t know better I’d almost say she fancied you,”

 

“For the last time, Fae, I’m straight. What happened between us was a mistake, we were young. Now can we please leave Osgood out of this,” 

 

She snorted, almost spitting out her wine “That’s not what you were telling me back in the day,” 

 

“That was a long time ago,” 

 

“ _ Christ _ , I know I wasn’t great in bed back then but are you really suggesting that I managed to turn you around?”

 

“I’m suggesting that you should mind your own business,” 

 

From there, they ate the rest of the meal in silence. Well, perhaps a more accurate description would be that  _ Kate  _ ate whilst her lunch date tested how long she could get away with staring before she got glared at. 

 

\---  

 

The atmosphere still hadn’t got much lighter by the time they got back to Kate’s flat. 

 

“Haven’t you got a wife to be getting back to?” asked the blonde, when she realised that her impromptu house guest was about to help herself to yet another cup of tea.

 

“Haven’t you got a husband to be coming back home any minute?” She retorted, rubbing a dense black curl between the fingers of her free hand. 

 

“Why does everything always have to come down to my relationship status with you?”

 

Freya dropped the teaspoon in her mug before turning around to face Kate. There was a pause when the only clue that the universe continued to move on was the beeping of a bin lorry reversing outside.

 

Then, in a whisper that screamed far more than either woman would admit, came a reply. 

 

“You know why,” 

 

The blonde was half-way to stringing together a come-back, a rejection, something,  _ anything _ , that would finally end the second in which they were locked, before the pressure of lips on hers made a joke of linear time. 

 

There was barely a second’s thought before she was pushed back against the worktop, the taste of sweet tea and chewing gum and hairspray flooding her mouth. Then, muscle memory took over and suddenly she was twenty one years old, when kissing had felt like breathing. 

 

It was cold palms against her stomach that jolted her back into the present.   

 

She pushed to woman away by the shoulders, her lungs reclaiming lost air as they looked each other in the eye. 

 

“Get out,” 

Freya didn’t need much encouragement and, in a vicious replay of their last parting, Kate watched as she picked up her bag scurried out of the room. Time returning to it’s usual pace, it wasn’t long before the front door slammed and she was left to sink to the floor against the kitchen counter. 

 

_ She’d just been kissed by a woman  _

 

_ And she’d kissed back.  _

 

“Shit,” 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Osgood stages an intervention.

Work the next morning wasn’t much better. 

 

News travels fast around UNIT and by the time she’d dragged herself into her office, still feeling like death, she must’ve got a raised eyebrow from pretty much everyone on her staff list. Even the  _ window-cleaner  _ smirked when she walked past for God’s sake.

 

It seemed the only person under her employment with an ounce of subtlety was Osgood, who she found in the labs dipping what looked like a blue scale into a bucket. 

 

“So, what’re we dealing with?” she asked, glad of normality. 

 

Osgood jumped, her tongs falling into the bucket with a splash. “Sorry - I didn’t hear you come in,” After a few deep breaths, the wheezing died down “It’s a sample from one of those lizards, you know the ones that tried to launch an attack last night?”

 

“If you’re trying to comment on my attendance-”   
  


“Sorry, ma’am, I assumed you would’ve been informed. Last night, about half ten our time, there was a hostile incursion from a race - we think they were reptilian, in the arctic, about seven miles from the North pole,”

 

“Why didn’t you contact me immediately?”   
  


“We were about to when they left the ship, something about their scales made them intolerable to the local climate. They were forced to retreat almost immediately. No casualties apart from the poor soul this came from,”

 

Kate took a closer look at the limp slime now resting on the edge of the bucket. With the exception of a patch at the top, the scabbed surface was entirely covered in a layer of clear pus. It looked like a large blue slug that’d stepped on. Repeatedly. 

 

Wrinkling her nose at the slightly sour odor that’d began to spread across the lab, she remarked “It wouldn’t be a  _ poor soul  _ if it was running riot around London. With any luck, the ones that’re left’ll report enough back to make the others have second thoughts before they decide to do just that. How quickly can you get the paperwork on my desk?” 

 

“Already there, ma’am,”

 

“Good, I’ll leave you to it, then,” She said, hauling her handbag back over her shoulder.

 

“Just one more question, I’m afraid,”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Where were you last night? I wouldn’t ask but… well, I need to put it in the forms in case anyone asks why you weren’t present in the meetings?”   
  


Kate gripped the straps of her bag with both hands “Put it down as…. a family emergency, they shouldn’t need to know much more than that,”

 

“It was something to do with her, wasn’t it” Osgood pretended not to notice when Kate’s whole head snapped up to scrutinize her “Sorry, I hate to sound unprofessional but I have to ask. There’s so many rumors going around here...”

 

“Feel free to elaborate,” it was said in the same, unwavering tone usually reserved for orders at the eleventh hour. 

There was a muffled thud as the tongs hit the bottom of the bucket “Well, Malcolm walked past your office when Freya was in there and you two seemed to be quite…  _ close _ and then when you left with her  -”

 

“So now everyone’s assuming that we slept together?”

 

The brunette felt her cheeks grow warm as she went a light shade of pink. “Well… um…pretty much, yeah,” 

 

Kate rolled her eyes, leaning against a lab bench “And to think I complained when you all thought I was an old cat lady. Now you think I go sleeping around with random  _ women _ ?”

 

“I wouldn’t say sleeping around. I think it’s more that you and Doctor Allen are in a relationship of some sort. It’d certainly explain why she seemed to know so much about you… or… well, why she went around telling everyone that you were her girlfriend,” She wrung her hands, feeling her excuse being swallowed by the quiet of the lab. “I know you said she was an old friend but we thought that maybe you were just scared to tell us that you’re… not straight,” 

“I’m not gay, Osgood,” 

  
“I never said you were,” 

 

The blonde snorted “Ah, yes, you just think I sleep with women. Sorry, my mistake, that  _ obviously  _ makes me straight,”

 

“You could be bisexual or pansexual,”  

 

“In English?”

 

“Basically that you sleep- well, feel  _ attracted to  _ more than one gender,” 

 

Kate’s expression, lips slightly parted as if frozen half-way through asking a question as her eyes went out of focus, told Osgood all that she needed to know. She’d had her suspicions, of course, usually after catching her boss staring for a second too long but it’d never occurred to her that she’d be anything less than certain about her identity. 

 

“Oh,” she whispered, finally finding out what it’s like to be on the  _ other side  _ of particular revelation. 

 

Then, crossing some unspoken boundary between two lab-partners, she went one step further “Something did happen between you two didn’t it? That’s what you meant when you said you were old friends,” 

 

“Yes,” she swallowed, looking her co-worker in the eye for the first time that day. “But I was so  _ sure  _ that the whole thing’d been a mistake but then last night, she  _ kissed me  _ and-” Perhaps it was surreality of that’d lingered about the entire conversation that made it so easy to spill a truth that’d been haunting her since she was fifteen. 

 

“And you liked it?”

 

There was no need for an answer. 

 

But the silence made the throbbing of her pulse maddening. Like becoming aware of your blinking or breathing manually. Forgetting how to forget. 

 

Casting her eyes downward, she replied anyway. “But this isn’t about  _ her _ . I meant what I said when I told you we’re long gone but when she kissed me…” Kate closed her eyes, tongue tracing the patterns drawn the previous night, just below her lip. She could’ve sworn that if she’d inhaled deeply enough, she’d still be able to smell hairspray, “I’m not supposed to want that anymore. I’m a  _ grown woman _ , for God’s sake. Head of UNIT, too. We might be out of the fifties but imagine what the government would do if they found out that I… well, that I  _ had _ ..”  

 

“Going off their responses to some of your father’s antics, they’d probably give you a high five,” 

 

She was met by a face like thunder “That’s not helping, Osgood,” 

 

There was another silence. More comfortable than the last. At least they were able to look each other in the eye. 

 

In the end, it was Osgood that broke it “Right, that’s it. I’ll put today in as another family emergency day - for both of us,” she said, shrugging off her lab coat before leaving it shrewn over the back of her chair. 

 

“Why? Where’re you going?” 

  
“We. I’m staging an intervention. Bring your handbag and follow me,” 


	3. Chapter 3

 

“What about this one?” Osgood turned her laptop around to display a headshot of yet another beanie-clad woman. This one had a short, strawberry blonde bob framing a pale, freckled face that was all but drowned out by a toothy grin smothered in red lipstick. Yet, if it weren’t for the fact that her cheekbones looked as if they were about to give out, it would’vet suited her. “Helen Ellesbridge, thirty five years old, looking for-”

 

“Let me guess - third for her and her boyfriend?” Suggested Kate, raising her eyebrows limply. Osgood’s weak half-smile told her all that she needed to know.

 

“Honestly, I don’t see why this is so important to you anyway, however keen you lot all seem to be to get your noses into my private life,”

 

“I’m just trying to help, Kate,”  


Kate leaned back against the cushion of the sofa, crossing one leg over the other “So, this is what they mean when they say that you lot _‘recruit them_ ’. I must say, I did hope I’d get a free pen in the least,”

 

The brunette smiled, properly now. The, she closed the lid on her computer. Perhaps _‘online people shopping_ ’ (as Kate’d so _eloquently_ put it) wasn’t the way forward after all. Something, somewhere probably ought to have been disappointed but, curled up on Kate’s sofa, inhaling the slightly sweet steam that rose from her tea, Osgood couldn’t quite bring herself to write the morning off as a failure.

 

“Sorry - it turns out that UNIT isn’t the only organisation that’s underfunded,” she cast her eyes over to the other side of the sofa, begging her lungs not to give away the weight of her next question.

 _“_ We could go out for dinner though - call it an introductory perk ?”

 

“Any terms and conditions I should know about?”

 

_Calm down._

_It’s not a date._

_It’s not a date._

_It’s not a date._

 

Her smile tightened as she swallowed “None that I know of, ma’am,”

 

“Well,” She held her mug down in her lap. “It’s not as if I have anything else to be getting on with - _deal_ ,”

 

\---

Hidden away at a table for two at the back of the restaurant, Osgood sneaked another glance at the screen of her watch.

 

_Kate was precisely ten minutes, thirty seven seconds and ninety five milliseconds late._

 

Osgood, on the other hand, had been sat at the table for half an hour.

 

She could almost _feel_ the pitying stares of the woman sat at the table behind. They hit the bottom of her stomach like industrial bleach. _Look at her_ , they said, _the poor thing can’t even get her date to show up._

 

_(Not that Kate was her date - but the woman wouldn’t know that.)_

 

Slowly, she began to scroll through files she’d read a million times before. The words passed through her brain like fresh air but at least it was an excuse not to make eye contact with the waiter when he came to deliver her fourth glass of water with a sympathetic smile.

 

 _Twelve minutes, seven seconds and forty-two milliseconds_.

 

Maybe she had the wrong time? Or the wrong restaurant? Or maybe her mind was playing tricks on her and they hadn’t arranged for dinner at all?

 

The image of Kate, tapping her finger against the empty table in the centre of another crowded restaurant was enough to make her reopen the notes tab on her phone.

 

 _7:30 - Dinner w/ K, The Olive branch_.

 

 _Oh_.

 

Maybe Kate was just busy? She’d been part of U.N.I.T for long enough to know that aliens very rarely show up within working hours. Heck, it was the first year in a decade that they didn’t have to deal with any sort of _Christmas_ incursion.

 

Or perhaps she’d found someone else to have dinner with? Against the turning of her insides, Osgood was faced with the image of Kate curled up on her sofa next to Dr.Allen. Having shared a bottle of wine that cost more than Osgood’s entire food weekly bill, cuddling soon turned to kissing and wandering hands and, and-

 

“Sorry I’m late - the traffic was _hell_ ,”

 

Osgood jumped back, taking the chair with her. It emitted a long scream as the legs scraped against the wooden floor.

 

“Kate,” She wasn’t wheezing but the sight of the blonde in her knee length black dress that hugged curves usually hidden by a blazer, didn’t do anything to stop the dramatic rising and falling of her chest. “You look… umm… lovely,”

 

“Well, I was looking for an excuse to wear this since our function got called off,” she shrugged, pulling herself out a seat. “Better this  than letting it get eaten by moths at the back of my wardrobe, anyway,” she said, with the same unflappable confidence that made everything seem so _effortless_. “Now, I don’t suppose you know if this place does a decent pint?”

 

The rest of the meal was painless enough, their usual easy flow of chat stretching from gardening to chess to crime novels. It wasn’t until dessert that either of them mentioned the events of that morning.

 

“Highcliff…” began Osgood, pretending to be interested in her crumble. “Didn’t she write Carol?”

 

The older woman studied her for a good ten seconds before answering “Yes, I read it when I was a teenager. Favourite book until my mum found it and threw it into the fish-pond. Except they called it ‘ _The price of salt_ ’ back then. Why? Have you read it?”

 

“No, I never really got into romance novels. They get too long to get started and you already know what’s going to happen at the end. I might go and see the film, though,”

 

“I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing, Osgood,” she replied coolly before taking another sip of her wine.  

 

The brunette could already feel the pressure as her lungs tightened. She wrung her hands under the table “You didn’t? Even after this afternoon when-”  


“I always assumed, after that thing with Captain Carter…”

 

“Now who’s listening to office gossip?”

 

“Sorry, I deserved that,” her gaze settled on a point somewhere in the no-man’s-land of the table “So, does this make you…”

 

“Bisexual, yes,”

  
Kate looked up, unexpectedly, smiling “Well, aren’t you full of surprises?”


	4. Chapter 4

 

_The dense humidity of Osgood’s breath had been driving Kate mad all night. She wasn’t sure how long they’d spent curled together on her sofa, watching the kind of carp that only aired at one in the morning but she was sure that when they eventually untangled themselves, she’d be left with a hot red branding tattooed into her neck._

 

_But that was nothing compared to how it felt when she felt the brunette’s mouth slowly edge itself closer. Impossibly soft lips rested themselves around her beating pulse. Then, there was her teeth and her tongue, biting and nipping, dipping lower and lower into the crevice of her neck._

  
_And she was dying. She had to be. Everything ending and beginning and collapsing in an answer to the question she hadn’t realised she’d been asking…._

 

She’d been awake for barely a minute when Kate realised she was two hours ahead of her alarm. Five before the click of a door handle told her why.

 

The motion sensors were on. The house was alarmed. The front door was locked.

 

Her breath was like a symbol crash in the empty air.

 

_Whatever was in her house, it was clever_.

 

Within thirty seconds the lightweight pistol usually tucked into the pillowcase on the empty side of the bed was firmly in her hand. Now she just had to stop her hand from shaking long enough to look like she was going to use it.

 

After one last intake of breath, she slipped her legs out of bed. The rest of her followed suit. Thankfully, the floorboards in her bedroom didn’t creak.

 

The stairs were another matter. Ten years of heavy-footed teenagers had left their mark.

 

She’d shouted at them at the time.

 

But now, as she listened to the distorted wheezing of her home welcoming its intruder, she was thankful. _Better the devil you know_.

 

She closed her eyes. Swallowed. Tightened the grip on her gun.

 

“Stay where you are. I am armed and I have reinforcements surrounding the property. We will not hesitate to dispose of threats as we see fit,”

 

It stopped.

 

“What is it with you Lethbridge-Stewart's - _honestly_ , and I thought the rest of you pudding brains were bad - but you lot, you just seem to want to shoot _everything_. Have you got a fetish or something?” The voice, it was annoyed, familiar and distinctly…

 

_Scottish_.

 

So, she was’t surprised that when the door swung open, she found the grey old stick insect stood behind it, hoodie and all.  

  
“And I don’t suppose that you’d like to explain _why_ you’re on my landing at four O’clock in the morning?”  

 

“Just thought I’d stop by for some tea and lemon cakes - why do you think?”

 

“Another hostile incursion?” She asked, checking her phone. One message. Just for a moment, her limbs froze. Widened eyes flitted back up to the man in her doorway. If he’d noticed, he wasn’t letting on. She swallowed. “No one’s paged me. And since when have you given us warning about this sort of thing anyway. I thought you didn’t like ‘our lot’ getting involved,”

 

“Yes, well, I’m telling you now. So you and your reinforcements can either follow me or stand here and try to argue whilst your planet gets stormed by everything that’s been patiently queuing on up the dark side of the moon and then some,” He doctor said, as if his eyebrows weren’t enough to get the message across “Oh, and for god’s sake, put the gun down, the last thing you want is to be thrown out of another plane for pointing it at the wrong people,”

 

Kate’s jaw tightened at the mention of _The cyberman incident_ , as it was so briefly referred to in UNIT files. He right leg twinged as if remembering the days of morphine and walking sticks.

 

“Just let me get dressed first - whatever it is, I’m not taking it down in a dressing gown and slippers,”

 

With a theatrical sigh that reminded her of a toddler in the beginnings of a temper tantrum, he grabbed her wrist “We’ve got clothes in the TARDIS - _come on_ ,”

 

“I thought you didn’t want to argue,” She retorted, yanking her arm out of his cold grip. “ _Turn around_ , doctor,”

 

Not without rolling his eyes, he begrudgingly turned around to the face the hallway.

 

It took Kate less than five seconds to open her wardrobe, ten to retrieve the shoe box from behind a pair of trainers and, although she’d stopped counting by the time that she lifted out the shining silver pistol, it couldn’t have totalled more than half a minute before five rounds of sedative-soaked pellets embedded themselves in the back the back of her intruders neck. Fizzing, it dissolved into a thick orange slime on the carpet.  

 

She picked up her phone again, this time calling the first name on her speed-dial “Osgood, you were right, he-it came after me first,”

 

“How did you know it wasn’t him?” The voice on the other side of the line didn’t sound like it’d been awake much longer than Kate had.  

 

“He believed me when I said I had full-time reinforcements. God knows we haven’t had that sort of funding for decades,”  
  


“Really?”

 

“Well, that and the eye colour. Speaking of which, has the real one turned up yet? Shape-shifting slime, I thought this’d be right up his alley”

 

“No, he hasn’t responded yet. How did you get it back to it’s dormant state?”

 

“Sedation gun to the back of the neck. I don’t know how long it’ll last, though, so I recommend you get someone over to clean it up before it decides to go walk-abouts,”

 

“Already on their way, ma’am,”

  
“Good. I’ll be at HQ at soon as I can. Until then, keep trying the doctor, I have a feeling we might need him on this one,”


	5. Chapter 5

For most people, spending the night in a room observing a wheelie bin full of hostile sentient goo probably wouldn’t be at the top of their to-do list.

 

Being sane, Osgood was, theoretically, one of them.  

 

However, sat on the other side of the bullet-proof glass wall, she found that there was something actually quite tranquil about watching the slime gently fade from colour to colour, knowing that she was the only person on Earth to ever really see it.

 

Well, apart  from Kate.

 

Osgood closed her eyes, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. She wondered what Kate would be up to twelve floors above. Arguing with the army, probably. Maybe the doctor if he’d turned up. They’d come up with something, between them. There had to be something that she’d missed first time around.

 

“You don’t half think highly of her - don’t you?”

 

She looked up at the sound of her superior’s voice.

 

Leaning her slender hands against the glass, stood Kate in nothing but a silky cream nightie. Osgood cast her eyes back down to the cardboard coffee cup she was rotating in her hands before the burning under her skin could display itself in her face.

 

“I can _sense_ it,” Kate, no, _the creature’s_ dry statement was an octave lower now as it purred through the speaker. Osgood looked up for long enough to see it leaning towards her, allowing a full view of its cleavage and shuffled backward in her seat.

 

_Don’t wheeze._

_Don’t wheeze._

_Don’t wheeze._

 

Much to the creature’s amusement, she fished rifled through her rucksack for a light blue inhaler. The last thing she needed was for Kate, _the real Kate_ , to come down and find her mid-asthma attack next to a half-naked copy. And it’s laugh, a deep chuckle that sent vibrations down her spine, wasn’t doing much to help.  

 

“Not used to seeing me like this when you’re awake, are you Ozzie?”

 

The scientist took a deep puff of her inhaler “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

 

“Oh - I think you do. _I’ve been in your head_ . All those little fantasies of yours,” It took a sharp intake of breath, tapping a fingernail against the glass “I’ll give you something, you’re more creative than they give you credit for. Tell me, what’s it like? Blushing like a prude with all those dirty little secrets festering at the back of your head. I mean, it’s fascinating, really. And you gave me a _fabulous_ choice of outfits for this form, I’ll tell you,”

 

Osgood looked up with a scientist’s interest, the colour calming on her cheeks “Your clothes are part of your form?” She scribbled something down in her notebook “Are they separate or like a layer of second skin?”

 

The creature raised an eyebrow as it toyed with the strap of its nightie “Well, I can take them off if that’s what you’re wondering?”

 

She clicked closed her pen and dropped it into her lab-coat “Right, that’s it, I’m going to put you into isolation if you don’t stop,”

 

“And miss the chance to make your precious observations? I can’t imagine your little boss’ll be happy about that,”

 

“Why would you care?”

 

“I’m bored and, as soon as you chimp-brains can’t seem to be able to comprehend _anything_ more interesting than endless coupling, I thought I’d try my hand at matchmaking,”

 

“And how was any of that supposed to help?”

 

“Well, _I_ certainly found it amusing but I suppose I could always use a bit of _gentle_ hypnotism if you’d rather have the real thing ,”

 

Osgood stood up, closing her notebook “I’m calling Kate,”

\--- 

Kate was just about to take a sip from her first coffee of the day when her comms buzzed with static.

 

“Ma’am, someone’s requested you,”

 

Alone in her office, she rolled her eyes before setting the cup down on her desk “I’ve got an emergency MoD meeting in three minutes - can it wait?”

 

“It’s an emergency, ma’am, about the specimen you requested observations for. It’s down in the confinement chamber on K7,”

 

“Right, thank you, tell them I’ll be down as soon as I can,”

 

“Yes, ma’am, comms out,”

 

The emergency, as it turned out, was Osgood. Plural. They were engaged in what seemed to be some sort of silent Mexican standoff. The one on Kate’s side of the glass, clutching a clipboard, watching as her left hand scribbled down observations whilst the other, wearing a trademark slightly-too-big lab coat stared back, unblinking.

 

“Oh, for God’s sake, _really? Again?_ ” asked Kate with a blatant eye-roll, more frustrated than surprised by her head scientist’s ability to inexplicitly multiply.

 

Clipboard turned around “Sorry, ma’am but we decided that this was their most… _agreeable_ form,”

 

Kate gave her attention to lab-coat, who seemed to be smirking. “Why - what was it before?” With the Donald "We have stupid people" Trump incident still fresh in the science department’s minds, she honestly couldn’t think of a form that could top what they’d had already.

 

So, a minute later, when she found herself faced with her own cool gray eyes, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Still, on a side note, she did look bloody good for a woman that hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in the last week.

 

Labcoat raised an eyebrow, still smirking “Well - would you look at that?”

 

The blonde on Osgood’s side of the glass folded her arms, sighing as she gave her copy that impatient glare that every mother seemed to master at one point or another. “How very original - what do you want?”

 

“Funny, asthma for lungs here was just asking me the same question,”

 

“And you answered....?”

 

“Now, where’s the fun in that? Send four eyes out and then we’ll talk,”

 

“Do you want me to leave you in peace?” Interrupted Osgood, limply pointing to the lift.

 

“Yes,” answered Kate, looking back at her mirror image “I think that’d probably be for the best,”

 

There was a minute of thick silence as the doors rattled together, taking the brunette safely out of earshot. The creature’s eyes stalked its ascent “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it - does it still make a sound?” It spoke slowly, savouring the every syllable as they tugged at the drumming of the human’s tiny heart.

 

Kate clenched her jaw, arms locking around her chest “If you’re thinking of trying something-”

 

“ - You’ve got more cameras trained on me than if I were a double D-cup in a teenage boy’s bedroom. I noticed. Good thing, really, it’d be such a shame for something as precious as four-eyes’ reactions to go undocumented,”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Oh - I don’t know - the stuttering, the heart-rate, the blushing, funny - it’s almost as if it all started just when I chose your form. Honestly, though, you should hear the rubbish that goes ‘round and ‘round her head, it’s all: _Does Kate like me? Does Kate like me? Does Kate like me?_ ”

 

“Two hours ago, you wanted me dead and now you’re trying to set me up with my assistant? There must be more to it than that,”

 

It leaned back against the other side of the glass, inspecting its freshly cut nails “Like I said to your lady-friend, I’m bored, elevator controls are _pitifully_ easy to hack into and it’s not half as fun when they’ve got nothing to beg for,”

 

The comms on Kate’s hip crackled to life “Kate...Ma’am… The lift… The floor… It’s…”

 

Kate’s reflection smiled wide, like a lion tossing a mouse between it’s paws before the inevitable kill.

 

“ _Timber_ ,”  


End file.
